James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for their presentation. I missed the actual presentation but I did get a chance to read it in advance. It is great to have the witnesses at this committee. I am interested in higher education and in research in particular, which I did some work on as my party's spokesperson in the last Dáil. Brexit poses many challenges in the educational space north of the Border and in the UK. European Research Council, ERC, funding and Horizon 2020 funding including FP9 funding is available within the EU but may not be available following Brexit. That is a challenge for our witnesses and for other institutions across the Border. Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, had some ideas to address this, as did the Irish Research Council. The RIA is an all-island body established in 1735 and the Institute of Physics is an Ireland and UK body. These are quite august institutions that predate independence and hence are organised on an all-island and wider basis and maybe there opportunities there. One of the proposals that came through was that one way for universities in the North and the UK to continue to access ERC-type funding would be to have joint-chairs. A proposal could be put together, for example, by the University of Ulster and a university south of the Border for a joint research fellowship, professorship, initiative or team. That would also combat the risk of a flight of intellectual capital whereby research activity, research teams or research team leaders would move to other EU jurisdictions in order to access European funding. It seems like a good idea and eminently practical on an all-island basis. It would probably be a lot easier to run a joint chair between Belfast and Dublin than between Manchester and Dublin or London and Cork, for example. Has that been progressed in any meaningful sense? Is that something in which any of our witnesses is involved? Is it something that might become a reality next year? Is it something with which we could assist or is it even in the ether?